Orsino did not leave Rome after all. He was not in reality prevented
from doing so by the necessity of attending to his business, for he
might assuredly have absented himself for a week or two at almost any
time before the new year, without incurring any especial danger. From
time to time, at ever increasing intervals, he felt strongly impelled to
rejoin Maria Consuelo in Paris where she had ultimately determined to
spend the autumn and winter, but the impulse always lacked just the
measure of strength which would have made it a resolution. When he
thought of his many hesitations he did not understand himself and he
fell in his own estimation, so that he became by degrees more silent and
melancholy of disposition than had originally been natural with him.
He had much time for reflection and he constantly brooded over the
situation in which he found himself. The question seemed to be, whether
he loved Maria Consuelo or not, since he was able to display such
apparent indifference to her absence. In reality he also doubted whether
he was loved by her, and the one uncertainty was fully as great as the
other.
He went over all that had passed. The position had never been an easy
one, and the letter which Maria Consuelo had written to him after her
departure had not made it easier. It had contained the revelations
concerning her birth, together with many references to Spicca's
continued cruelty, plentifully supported by statements of facts. She had
then distinctly told Orsino that she would never marry him, under any
circumstances whatever, declaring that if he followed her she would not
even see him. She would not ruin his life and plunge him into a life
long quarrel with his family, she said, and she added that she would
certainly not expose herself to such treatment as she would undoubtedly
receive at the hands of the Saracinesca if she married Orsino without
his parents' consent.
A man does not easily believe that he is deprived of what he most
desires exclusively for his own good and welfare, and the last sentence
quoted wounded Orsino deeply. He believed himself ready to incur the
displeasure of all his people for Maria Consuelo's sake, and he said in
his heart that if she loved him she should be ready to bear as much as
he. The language in which she expressed herself, too, was cold and
almost incisive.
Unlike Spicca Orsino answered this letter, writing in an argumentative
strain, bringing the best reasons he could find to bear against those
she alleged, and at last reproaching her with not being willing to
suffer for his sake a tenth part of what he would endure for her. But he
announced his intention of joining her before long, and expressed the
certainty that she would receive him.
To this Maria Consuelo made no reply for some time. When she wrote at
last, it was to say that she had carefully considered her decision and
saw no good cause for changing it. To Orsino her tone seemed colder and
more distant than ever. The fact that the pages were blotted here and
there and that the handwriting was unsteady, was probably to be referred
to her carelessness. He brooded over his misfortune, thought more than
once of making a desperate effort to win back her love, and remained in
Rome. After a long interval he wrote to her again. This time he produced
an epistle which, under the circumstances, might have seemed almost
ridiculous. It was full of indifferent gossip about society, it
contained a few sarcastic remarks about his own approaching failure,
with some rather youthfully cynical observations on the instability of
things in general and the hollowness of all aspirations whatsoever.
He received no answer, and duly repented the flippant tone he had taken.
He would have been greatly surprised could he have learned that this
last letter was destined to produce a greater effect upon his life than
all he had written before it.
In the meanwhile his father, who had heard of the increasing troubles in
the world of business, wrote him in a constant strain of warning, to
which he paid little attention. His mother's letters, too, betrayed her
anxiety, but expressed what his father's did not, to wit the most
boundless confidence in his power to extricate himself honourably from
all difficulties, together with the assurance that if worst came to
worst she was always ready to help him.
Suddenly and without warning old Saracinesca returned from his
wanderings. He had taken the trouble to keep the family informed of his
movements by his secretary during two or three months and had then
temporarily allowed them to lose sight of him, thereby causing them
considerable anxiety, though an occasional paragraph in a newspaper
reassured them from time to time. Then, on a certain afternoon in
November, he appeared, alone and in a cab, as though he had been out for
a stroll.
"Well, my boy, are you ruined yet?" he inquired, entering Orsino's room
without ceremony.
The young man started from his seat and took the old gentleman's rough
hand, with an exclamation of surprise.
"Yes--you may well look at me," laughed the Prince. "I have grown ten
years younger. And you?" He pushed his grandson into the light and
scrutinised his face fiercely. "And you are ten years older," he
concluded, in a discontented tone.
"I did not know it," answered Orsino with an attempt at a laugh.
"You have been at some mischief. I know it. I can see it."
He dropped the young fellow's arm, shook his head and began to move
about the room. Then he came back all at once and looked up into
Orsino's face from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
"Out with it, I mean to know!" he said, roughly but not unkindly. "Have
you lost money? Are you ill? Are you in love?"
Orsino would certainly have resented the first and the last questions,
if not all three, had they been put to him by his father. There was
something in the old Prince's nature, something warmer and more human,
which appealed to his own. Sant' Ilario was, and always had been,
outwardly cold, somewhat measured in his speech, undemonstrative, a man
not easily moved to much expression or to real sympathy except by love,
but capable, under that influence, of going to great lengths. And
Orsino, though in some respects resembling his mother rather than his
father, was not unlike the latter, with a larger measure of ambition
and less real pride. It was probably the latter characteristic which
made him feel the need of sympathy in a way his father had never felt it
and could never understand it, and he was thereby drawn more closely to
his mother and to his grandfather than to Sant' Ilario.
Old Saracinesca evidently meant to be answered, as he stood there gazing
into Orsino's eyes.
"A great deal has happened since you went away," said Orsino, half
wishing that he could tell everything. "In the first place, business is
in a very bad state, and I am anxious."
"Dirty work, business," grumbled Saracinesca. "I always told you so.
Then you have lost money, you young idiot! I thought so. Did you think
you were any better than Montevarchi? I hope you have kept your name out
of the market, at all events. What in the name of heaven made you put
your hand to such filth! Come--how much do you want? We will whitewash
you and you shall start to-morrow and go round the world."
"But I am not in actual need of money at all--"
"Then what the devil are you in need of?"
"An improvement in business, and the assurance that I shall not
ultimately be bankrupt."
"If money is not an assurance that you will not be bankrupt, I would
like to learn what is. All this is nonsense. Tell me the truth, my
boy--you are in love. That is the trouble."
Orsino shrugged his shoulders.
"I have been in love some time," he answered.
"Young? Old? Marriageable? Married? Out with it, I say!"
"I would rather talk about business. I think it is all over now."
"Just like your father--always full of secrets! As if I did not know all
about it. You are in love with that Madame d'Aranjuez."
Orsino turned a little pale.
"Please do not call her 'that' Madame d'Aranjuez," he said, gravely.
"Eh? What? Are you so sensitive about her?"
"Yes."
"You are? Very well--I like that. What about her?"
"What a question!"
"I mean--is she indifferent, cold, in love with some one else?"
"Not that I am aware. She has refused to marry me and has left Rome,
that is all."
"Refused to marry you!" cried old Saracinesca in boundless astonishment.
"My dear boy, you must be out of your mind! The thing is impossible. You
are the best match in Rome. Madame d'Aranjuez refuse you--absolutely
incredible, not to be believed for a moment. You are dreaming. A
widow--without much fortune--the relict of some curious adventurer--a
woman looking for a fortune, a woman--"
"Stop!" cried Orsino, savagely.
"Oh yes--I forgot. You are sensitive. Well, well, I meant nothing
against her, except that she must be insane if what you tell me is true.
But I am glad of it, my boy, very glad. She is no match for you, Orsino.
I confess, I wish you would marry at once. I would like to see my great
grandchildren--but not Madame d'Aranjuez. A widow, too."
"My father married a widow."
"When you find a widow like your mother, and ten years younger than
yourself, marry her if you can. But not Madame d'Aranjuez--older than
you by several years."
"A few years."
"Is that all? It is too much, though. And who is Madame d'Aranjuez?
Everybody was asking the question last winter. I suppose she had a name
before she married, and since you have been trying to make her your
wife, you must know all about her. Who was she?"
Orsino hesitated.
"You see!" cried, the old Prince. "It is not all right. There is a
secret--there is something wrong about her family, or about her entrance
into the world. She knows perfectly well that we would never receive her
and has concealed it all from you--"
"She has not concealed it. She has told me the exact truth. But I shall
not repeat it to you."
"All the stronger proof that everything is not right. You are well out
of it, my boy, exceedingly well out of it. I congratulate you."
"I would rather not be congratulated."
"As you please. I am sorry for you, if you are unhappy. Try and forget
all about it. How is your mother?"
At any other time Orsino would have laughed at the characteristic
abruptness.
"Perfectly well, I believe. I have not seen her all summer," he answered
gravely.
"Not been to Saracinesca all summer! No wonder you look ill. Telegraph
to them that I have come back and let us get the family together as soon
as possible. Do you think I mean to spend six months alone in your
company, especially when you are away all day at that wretched office of
yours? Be quick about it--telegraph at once."
"Very well. But please do not repeat anything of what I have told you to
my father or my mother. That is the only thing I have to ask."
"Am I a parrot? I never talk to them of your affairs."
"Thanks. I am grateful."
"To heaven because your grandfather is not a parakeet! No doubt. You
have good cause. And look here, Orsino--"
The old man took Orsino's arm and held it firmly, speaking in a lower
tone.
"Do not make an ass of yourself, my boy--especially in business. But if
you do--and you probably will, you know--just come to me, without
speaking to any one else. I will see what can be done without noise.
There--take that, and forget all about your troubles and get a little
more colour into your face."
"You are too good to me," said Orsino, grasping the old Prince's hand.
For once, he was really moved.
"Nonsense--go and send that telegram at once. I do not want to be kept
waiting a week for a sight of my family."
With a deep, good humoured laugh he pushed Orsino out of the door in
front of him and went off to his own quarters.
In due time the family returned from Saracinesca and the gloomy old
palace waked to life again. Corona and her husband were both struck by
the change in Orsino's appearance, which indeed contrasted strongly with
their own, refreshed and strengthened as they were by the keen mountain
air, the endless out-of-door life, the manifold occupations of people
deeply interested in the welfare of those around them and supremely
conscious of their own power to produce good results in their own way.
When they all came back, Orsino himself felt how jaded and worn he was
as compared with them.
Before twelve hours had gone by, he found himself alone with his mother.
Strange to say he had not looked forward to the interview with pleasure.
The bond of sympathy which had so closely united the two during the
spring seemed weakened, and Orsino would, if possible, have put off the
renewal of intimate converse which he knew to be inevitable. But that
could not be done.
It would not be hard to find reasons for his wishing to avoid his
mother. Formerly his daily tale had been one of success, of hope, of
ever increasing confidence. Now he had nothing to tell of but danger and
anxiety for the future, and he was not without a suspicion that she
would strongly disapprove of his allowing himself to be kept afloat by
Del Ferice's personal influence, and perhaps by his personal aid. It was
hard to begin daily intercourse on a basis of things so different from
that which had seemed solid and safe when they had last talked together.
He had learned to bear his own troubles bravely, too, and there was
something which he associated with weakness in the idea of asking
sympathy for them now. He would rather have been left alone.
Deep down, too, was the consciousness of all that had happened between
himself and Maria Consuelo since his mother's departure. Another
suffering, another and distinctly different misfortune, to be borne
better in silence than under question even of the most affectionate
kind. His grandfather had indeed guessed at both truths and had taxed
him with them at once, but that was quite another matter. He knew that
the old gentleman would never refer again to what he had learned, and he
appreciated the generous offer of help, of which he would never avail
himself, in a way in which he could not appreciate an assistance even
more lovingly proffered, perhaps, but which must be asked for by a
confession of his own failure.
On the other hand, he was incapable of distorting the facts in any way
so as to make his mother believe him more successful than he actually
was. There was nothing dishonest, perhaps, in pretending to be hopeful
when he really had little hope, but he could not have represented the
condition of the business otherwise than as it really stood.
The interview was a long one, and Corona's dark face grew grave if not
despondent as he explained to her one point after another, taking
especial care to elucidate all that bore upon his relations with Del
Ferice. It was most important that his mother should understand how he
was placed, and how Del Ferice's continued advances of money were not to
be regarded in the light of a personal favour, but as a speculation in
which Ugo would probably get the best of the bargain. Orsino knew how
sensitive his mother would be on such a point, and dreaded the moment
when she should begin to think that he was laying himself under
obligations beyond the strict limits of business.
Corona leaned back in her low seat and covered her eyes with one hand
for a moment, in deep thought. Orsino waited anxiously for her to speak.
"My dear," she said at last, "you make it very clear, and I understand
you perfectly. Nevertheless, it seems to me that your position is not
very dignified, considering who you are, and what Del Ferice is. Do you
not think so yourself?"
Orsino flushed a little. She had not put the point as he had expected,
and her words told upon him.
"When I entered business, I put my dignity in my pocket," he answered,
with a forced laugh. "There cannot be much of it in business, at the
best."
His mother's black eyes seemed to grow blacker, and the delicate nostril
quivered a little.
"If that is true, I wish you had never meddled in these affairs," she
said, proudly. "But you talked differently last spring, and you made me
see it all in another way. You made me feel, on the contrary that in
doing something for yourself, in showing that you were able to
accomplish something, in asserting your independence, you were making
yourself more worthy of respect--and I have respected you accordingly."
"Exactly," answered Orsino, catching at the old argument. "That is just
what I wished to do. What I said a moment since was in the way of a
generality. Business means a struggle for money, I suppose, and that, in
itself, is not dignified. But it is not dishonourable. After all, the
means may justify the end."
"I hate that saying!" exclaimed Corona hotly. "I wish you were free of
the whole affair."
"So do I, with all my heart!"
A short silence followed.
"If I had known all this three months ago," Corona resumed, "I would
have taken the money and given it to you, to clear yourself. I thought
you were succeeding and I have used all the funds I could gather to buy
the Montevarchi's property between us and Affile and in planting
eucalyptus trees in that low land of mine where the people have suffered
so much from fever. I have nothing at my disposal unless I borrow. Why
did you not tell me the truth in the summer, Orsino? Why have you let me
imagine that you were prospering all along, when you have been and are
at the point of failure? It is too bad--"
She broke off suddenly and clasped her hands together on her knee.
"It is only lately that business has gone so badly," said Orsino.
"It was all wrong from the beginning! I should never have encouraged
you. Your father was right, as he always is--and now you must tell him
so."
But Orsino refused to go to his father, except in the last extremity. He
represented that it was better, and more dignified, since Corona
insisted upon the point of dignity, to fight the battle alone so long as
there was a chance of winning. His mother, on the other hand, maintained
that he should free himself at once and at any cost. A few months
earlier he could easily have persuaded her that he was right; but she
seemed changed since he had parted from her, and he fancied that his
father's influence had been at work with her. This he resented bitterly.
It must be remembered, too, that he had begun the interview with a
preconceived prejudice, expecting it to turn out badly, so that he was
the more ready to allow matters to take an unfavourable turn.
The result was not a decided break in his relations with his mother, but
a state of things more irritating than any open difference could have
been. From that time Corona discouraged him, and never ceased to advise
him to go to his father and ask frankly for enough money to clear him
outright. Orsino, on his part, obstinately refused to apply to any one
for help, as long as Del Ferice continued to advance him money.
In those months which followed there were few indeed who did not suffer
in the almost universal financial cataclysm. All that Contini and
others, older and wiser than he, had predicted, took place, and more
also. The banks refused discount, even upon the best paper, saying with
justice that they were obliged to hold their funds in reserve at such a
time. The works stopped almost everywhere. It was impossible to raise
money. Thousands upon thousands of workmen who had come from great
distances during the past two or three years were suddenly thrown out of
work, penniless in the streets and many of them burdened with wives and
children. There were one or two small riots and there was much
demonstration, but, on the whole, the poor masons behaved very well. The
government and the municipality did what they could--what governments
and municipalities can do when hampered at every turn by the most
complicated and ill-considered machinery of administration ever invented
in any country. The starving workmen were by slow degrees got out of the
city and sent back to starve out of sight in their native places. The
emigration was enormous in all directions.
The dismal ruins of that new city which was to have been built and which
never reached completion are visible everywhere. Houses seven stories
high, abandoned within a month of completion rise uninhabited and
uninhabitable out of a rank growth of weeds, amidst heaps of rubbish,
staring down at the broad, desolate streets where the vigorous grass
pushes its way up through the loose stones of the unrolled metalling.
Amidst heavy low walls which were to have been the ground stories of
palaces, a few ragged children play in the sun, a lean donkey crops the
thistles, or if near to a few occupied dwellings, a wine seller makes a
booth of straw and chestnut boughs and dispenses a poisonous, sour drink
to those who will buy. But that is only in the warm months. The winter
winds blow the wretched booth to pieces and increase the desolation.
Further on, tall façades rise suddenly up, the blue sky gleaming
through their windows, the green moss already growing upon their naked
stones and bricks. The Barbarini of the future, if any should arise,
will not need to despoil the Colosseum to quarry material for their
palaces. If, as the old pasquinade had it the Barbarini did what the
Barbarians did not, how much worse than barbarians have these modern
civilizers done!
The distress was very great in the early months of 1889. The
satisfaction which many of the new men would have felt at the ruin of
great old families was effectually neutralized by their own financial
destruction. Princes, bankers, contractors and master masons went down
together in the general bankruptcy. Ugo Del Ferice survived and with him
Andrea Contini and Company, and doubtless other small firms which he
protected for his own ends. San Giacinto, calm, far-seeing, and keen as
an eagle, surveyed the chaos from the height of his magnificent fortune,
unmoved and immovable, awaiting the lowest ebb of the tide. The
Saracinesca looked on, hampered a little by the sudden fall in rents and
other sources of their income, but still superior to events, though
secretly anxious about Orsino's affairs, and daily expecting that he
must fail.
And Orsino himself had changed, as was natural enough. He was learning
to seem what he was not, and those who have learned that lesson know how
it influences the real man whom no one can judge but himself. So long as
there had been one person in his life with whom he could live in perfect
sympathy he had given himself little trouble about his outward
behaviour. So long as he had felt that, come what might, his mother was
on his side, he had not thought it worth his while not to be natural
with every one, according to his humour. He was wrong, no doubt, in
fancying that Corona had deserted him. But he had already suffered a
loss, in Maria Consuelo, which had at the time seemed the greatest
conceivable, and the pain he had suffered then, together with, the deep
though, unacknowledged wound to his vanity, had predisposed him to
believe that he was destined to be friendless. The consequence was that
a very slight break in the perfect understanding which had so long
existed between him and his mother had produced serious results. He now
felt that he was completely alone, and like most lonely men of sound
character he acquired the habit of keeping his troubles entirely to
himself, while affecting an almost unnaturally quiet and equable manner
with those around him. On the whole, he found that his life was easier
when he lived it on this principle. He found that he was more careful in
his actions since he had a part to sustain, and that his opinion carried
more weight since he expressed it more cautiously and seemed less liable
to fluctuations of mood and temper. The change in his character was more
apparent than real, perhaps, as changes of character generally are when
not in the way of logical development; but the constant thought of
appearances reacts upon the inner nature in the end, and much which at
first is only put on, becomes a habit next, and ends by taking the place
of an impulse.
Orsino was aware that his chief preoccupation was identical with that
which absorbed his mother's thoughts. He wished to free himself from the
business in which he was so deeply involved, and which still prospered
so strangely in spite of the general ruin. But here the community of
ideas ended. He wished to free himself in his own way, without
humiliating himself by going to his father for help. Meanwhile, too,
Sant' Ilario himself had his doubts concerning his own judgment. It was
inconceivable to him that Del Ferice could be losing money to oblige
Orsino, and if he had desired to ruin him he could have done so with
ease a hundred times in the past months. It might be, he said to
himself, that Orsino had after all, a surprising genius for affairs and
had weathered the storm in the face of tremendous difficulties. Orsino
saw the belief growing in his father's mind, and the certainty that it
was there did not dispose him to throw up the fight and acknowledge
himself beaten.
The Saracinesca were one of the very few Roman families in which there
is a tradition in favour of non-interference with the action of children
already of age. The consequence was that although the old Prince,
Giovanni and his wife, all three felt considerable anxiety, they did
nothing to hamper Orsino's action, beyond an occasionally repeated
warning to be careful. That his occupation was distasteful to them, they
did not conceal, but he met their expressions of opinion with perfect
equanimity and outward good humour, even when his mother, once his
staunch ally, openly advised him to give up business and travel for a
year. Their prejudice was certainly not unnatural, and had been
strengthened by the perusal of the unsavoury details published by the
papers at each new bankruptcy during the year. But they found Orsino now
always the same, always quiet, good-humoured and firm in his projects.
Andrea Contini had not been very exact in his calculation of the date at
which the last door and the last window would be placed in the last of
the houses which he and Orsino had undertaken to build. The disturbance
in business might account for the delay. At all events it was late in
April of the following year before the work was completed. Then Orsino
went to Del Ferice.
"Of course," he said, maintaining the appearance of calm which had now
become habitual with him, "I cannot expect to pay what I owe the bank,
unless I can effect a sale of these buildings. You have known that, all
along, as well as I. The question is, can they be sold?"
"You have no applicant, then?" Del Ferice looked grave and somewhat
surprised.
"No. We have received no offer."
"You owe the bank a very large sum on these buildings, Don Orsino."
"Secured by mortgages on them," answered the young man quietly, but
preparing for trouble.
"Just so. Secured by mortgages. But if the bank should foreclose within
the next few months, and if the buildings do not realize the amount
secured, Contini and Company are liable for the difference."
"I know that."
"And the market is very bad, Don Orsino, and shows no signs of
improvement."
"On the other hand the houses are finished, habitable, and can be let
immediately."
"They are certainly finished. You must be aware that the bank has
continued to advance the sums necessary for two reasons. Firstly,
because an expensive but habitable dwelling is better than a cheap one
with no roof. Secondly, because in doing business with Andrea Contini
and Company we have been dealing with the only really honest and
economical firm in Rome."
Orsino smiled vaguely, but said nothing. He had not much faith in Del
Ferice's flattery.
"But that," continued the latter, "does not dispense us from the
necessity of realising what is owing to us--I mean the bank--either in
money, or in an equivalent--or in an equivalent," he repeated,
thoughtfully rolling a big silver pencil case backward and forward upon
the table under his fat white hand.
"Evidently," assented Orsino. "Unfortunately, at the present time, there
seems to be no equivalent for ready money."
"No--no--perhaps not," said Ugo, apparently becoming more and more
absorbed in his own thoughts. "And yet," he added, after a little pause,
"an arrangement may be possible. The houses certainly possess advantages
over much of this wretched property which is thrown upon the market. The
position is good and the work is good. Your work is very good, Don
Orsino. You know that better than I. Yes--the houses have advantages, I
admit. The bank has a great deal of waste masonry on its hands, Don
Orsino--more than I like to think of."
"Unfortunately, again, the time for improving such property is gone by."
"It is never too late to mend, says the proverb," retorted Del Ferice
with a smile. "I have a proposition to make. I will state it clearly. If
it is not to our mutual advantage, I think neither of us will lose so
much by it as we should lose in other ways. It is simply this. We will
cry quits. You have a small account current with the bank, and you must
sacrifice the credit balance--it is not much, I find--about thirty-five
thousand."
"That was chiefly the profit on the first contract," observed Orsino.
"Precisely. It will help to cover the bank's loss on this. It will help,
because when I say we will cry quits, I mean that you shall receive an
equivalent for your houses--a nominal equivalent of course, which the
bank nominally takes back as payment of the mortgages."
"That is not very clear," said Orsino. "I do not understand you."
"No," laughed Del Ferice. "I admit that it is not. It represented rather
my own view of the transaction than the practical side. But I will
explain myself beyond the possibility of mistake. The bank takes the
houses and your cash balance and cancels the mortgages. You are then
released from all debt and all obligation upon the old contract. But the
bank makes one condition which, is important. You must buy from the
bank, on mortgage of course, certain unfinished buildings which it now
owns, and you--Andrea Contini and Company--must take a contract to
complete them within a given time, the bank advancing you money as
before upon notes of hand, secured by subsequent and successive
mortgages."
Orsino was silent. He saw that if he accepted, Del Ferice was receiving
the work of a whole year and more without allowing the smallest profit
to the workers, besides absorbing the profits of a previous successfully
executed contract, and besides taking it for granted that the existing
mortgages only just covered the value of the buildings. If, as was
probable, Del Ferice had means of either selling or letting the houses,
he stood to make an enormous profit. He saw, too, that if he accepted
now, he must in all likelihood be driven to accept similar conditions on
a future occasion, and that he would be binding Andrea Contini and
himself to work, and to work hard, for nothing and perhaps during years.
But he saw also that the only alternative was an appeal to his father,
or bankruptcy which ultimately meant the same thing. Del Ferice spoke
again.
"Whether you agree, or whether you prefer a foreclosure, we shall both
lose. But we should lose more by the latter course. In the interests of
the bank I trust that you will accept. You see how frankly I speak about
it. In the interests of the bank. But then, I need not remind you that
it would hardly be fair to let us lose heavily when you can make the
loss relatively a slight one--considering how the bank has behaved to
you, and to you alone, throughout this fatal year."
"I will give you an answer to-morrow," said Orsino.
He thought of poor Contini who would find that he had worked for nothing
during a whole year. But then, it would be easy for Orsino to give
Contini a sum of money out of his private resources. Anything was better
than giving up the struggle and applying to his father.